It's interesting that for something considered "too American" at times, the United States apparently no longer exists in Trek. Oh, the cities and states still do, but the United States government is generally referred to in the past tense in the various Trek shows.
The US government has never been established to no longer exist; the writers have been deliberately vague about the whole thing. I see no reason to think that the US government cannot still exist as a subdivision of United Earth, myself.
The writers have only referrred to the U.S. government in the past tense in Trek, but never in the present tense.
But there again, it's never been relevant to the story in the present tense, either. After all, Massachusetts exists, but if you're examining an artifact from the 1740s Massachusetts Bay Colony, you might not bother mentioning it.
It's definitely plausible that the U.S. was among the "major nations" that fell during or after World War III as mentioned in First Contact.
It's plausible -- and in fact, I would theorize that the federal government probably ceased or virtually ceased to exist from the outbreak of World War III in 2053 to at least First Contact -- but that doesn't mean that the it was never re-established or that the US doesn't exist as a division of United Earth.
In fact, we do have
one piece of evidence that the US still exists in the Trekverse: In "Affliction" (ENT), an address in San Francisco is displayed on an
Enterprise computer, and its last two lines read:
"San Francisco, CA
USA"
I think it has to be "Americancentric". It is written by Americans, I mean, how can it not reflect our ideals and culture? And is it so wrong for it to be Americancentric? Don't we have a right to reflect our opinions and ideals too?
And c'mon, would anybody like Doctor Who if it wasn't British in flavor? Get real!
There's a difference between presenting a future that reflects American ideals and presenting a future where America rules and all other Human cultures seem to have virtually disappeared.
America is a multicultural place. Promoting its values is not ethnic or provincial.
Yeah, but the fact that America is multicultural doesn't mean that it doesn't have its own culture. And in fact, that arguably just makes things worse. For instance, even though Uhura and LaForge are both supposed to have origins in Africa itself (in two made-up African countries), the fact is that both were played by Americans and they had American accents. Neither one was truly
African; they were African-American. (Similar to how Picard is supposed to be French, but, really, he's English.) In other words, Trek Americanize things even if it means turning them into American minority groups.
How often have we run across an
African character played by an
African actor? Or a Muslim character played by a Muslim character? Or an Asian character played by an Asian actor? Etc. Not that often. The vast majority of Trek characters have been European-Americans and African-Americans, and a minority have been Europeans -- and of those Europeans, they've all been either British (Bashir, Reed, Kyle), British but played by a Canadian (Scotty), French but played by a Briton (Picard), an alien but played by a Briton (Troi), Russian (Chekov), or Irish (O'Brien). In essence,
Trek's idea of a multicultural Earth is to portray almost everyone as American, Russian, Irish, or British. That's
not an inclusive depiction of the future, even if it tries to be; it's a depiction that very much reflects American cultural makeup and American assumptions about who is and is not important.
Two accusations others are eager to levy - still waiting for more multicultural efforts from other countries....? You know, to give the US something to emulate, from these high-minded cultures?
And that's a completely fair question to raise. Certainly
Doctor Who tends to depict a very British-centric future where everyone's either British or American -- but, there again,
Doctor Who is explicitly supposed to be a story about British identity and British pride told through the POV of an alien, whereas
Star Trek is supposed to be a story about
human identity and
human pride. Or, beyond that,
Federation identity and
Federation pride -- to encompass even fictional groups.
It's somewhat implied that the East Coast no longer exists. I don't recall any reference to New York, Washington, Baltimore, Charleston, Columbia, Boston, Richmond. The easternmost geographical reference from pre-ENT Trek that I can think of is New Orleans.
ENT of course does have a geographical reference to the East Coast--Florida. Of course, it was shown just to be destroyed.
I like to think everything east of the Mississippi is a nature preserve/memorial, and possibly still slightly radioactive, with no human inhabitants any longer.
um, Archer's from New York state and Trip mentions visiting New York city...
God,
Enterprise could even ruin a good post-apocalypse, couldn't it?
Honestly, if the entire East Coast was
that irradiated, I rather imagine that most life in North America would have been destroyed -- and that therefore most life on the
planet would have been destroyed. Since the canon has established that cities like New Orleans, Paris, Berlin, etc., survived, this strongly implies that World War III was a very limited nuclear exchange -- therefore decreasing the likelihood that many major cities were exterminated.
If it makes you feel better, though, the canon has never established that New York, Boston, or Washington survived, and it
has established that much of Los Angeles was destroyed by an earthquake in the 2030s. The novels have featured New York City, but the novelization to
First Contact established that D.C. and the surrounding area was vaporized.